Ukraine Archives - The Race Card Project

My great-grandparents fled pogroms in Ukraine.

October 26, 2021October 26, 2021 1903, antisemitism, Britt Trachtenberg, grandparents, great grandparents, Jewish, Long Island, NY, Russian, Ukraine

Britt Trachtenberg,
Long Island, NY

p>I think part of my story is about how I ended up being born with privilege in an affluent community in Long Island, while my great-grandparents immigrated from Russian-controlled areas of the Ukraine in the early 1900s. My great-grandparents sought to leave because of instances of religion-based violence– called “pogroms” in Russia. They settled in Brooklyn, where they would open a hardware store and raise two children: my grandmother and aunt. My grandmother has fond memories of working in her parents’ hardware store and often speaks to how hard her parents worked to give herself and her sister a better life in America.

“Pogrom” is a Russian word that translates to “wreak havoc” in English. Historically, there are many instances of Ukrainian and Russian Jewish people being persecuted and attacked for their religion. For example, in 1903, Kishinev became a very unsafe place for Jewish Ukrainians to live after a newspaper used the minority group as a scapegoat for the death of two children. Such statements, unfortunately, resulted in many murders and homes destroyed (Source: https://www.history.com/topics/russia/pogroms).

Today, antisemitism is still a relevant topic all over the world. Many leaders, activists, actors, and members of our communities have spoken out against antisemitism and have started movements and calls to action to create change. The movement Grassroots Jews (www.http://www.grassrootsjews.org/new-page) works to bring together communities of Jewish people through things like services, communal meals, and even food recipe suggestions for holidays. Another movement called Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (https://www.bendthearc.us/) focuses on bringing together Jewish voices in America to fight for justice and equality in chapters across the U.S. Current campaigns include petitions to stand with Jewish communities in Florida against white nationalism. Movements like the ones named above are relevant to my story as an American Jewish woman because of how antisemitism hurts my Jewish friends, family, and neighbors and how much it has hurt my relatives and people that my relatives care about.

Red hair? You must be Irish.

May 10, 2021 Ashkenazi Jewish, blue eyes, ct, define, Eastern Europe, green, irish, Poland, Red Hair, Romania, Russia, Saint Patrick's Day, Ukraine, Vered W

Vered W,
CT

I have bright red hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. Everybody thinks that I am Irish. I am Ashkenazi Jewish from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. I am not one drop Irish, despite how much I have been asked. Whenever people see me they say something about my red hair: “Where do you get it from?”, “Are you Irish?”, on Saint Patrick’s Day I have even been asked why I am not wearing green. Sometimes I just want to get into a conversation about genetics and how red hair works – “I get it from both sides, it is a recessive gene” – and other times I just say that my dad has red hair. For these people that are convinced I am Irish, I hope encountering someone with red hair who is not Irish will teach them that they have it wrong and one characteristic about someone does not define who they are.

“Where’re you from?” Up to you.

June 10, 2015July 4, 2018 accent, Ami Bogin, British, Chinese, england, identify, Japanese, Kalmykia, rude, Ukraine, where are you from, you don't look

Ami Bogin,
England.

I get “where are you from?” so often (or the polite “Your accent’s different…” of the British, or the more rude “You Chinese? Japanese?” sometimes from everywhere) in my life and thirty years in I still don’t know how to provide an answer, or at least an answer that will satisfy the questioner. It nearly always feels like there are assumptions behind this question, and in asking they’re only asking for confirmation of their own fabricated story of me, my face, or my accent.

I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I identify with that the strongest, so I usually just say I’m American. Sometimes that will elicit a frustrated face, and I’ll continue that my parents were both born in Europe – my dad in France and my mom in Bulgaria. People will either say something like “ahh mixes breeds are cool” or something equally trite, or press on, helpfully mentioning that I look “Chinese or something,” and where are my grandparents from. That’s a bit harder – most were born in Russia but my Grandma was born in Istanbul. Sometimes people will then ask if “I’m from” the “Mongolian side” of Russia. But the truth is my grandparents all look Asian as well and descended from a small region in European Russia called Kalmykia. When they try to convince me of the region’s location in the Asian side of Russia and I point it out not far from Ukraine and Georgia, they press further. Only until I mention that the area was populated by people who descended from the Mongols in 17th century do people back off – “Ah, you’re Mongolian.”

So there’s your riddle. What am I? Am I what you would consider “Russian” even though the people I descended from were exiled from that region in the early 1900s, forcing my family to immigrate around central Europe? Am I American/French as my passports allude to? Am I Mongolian, despite no one in the family knowing any Mongolian, or indeed having any cultural heritage remaining connecting us to it? Or Am I just me?
And is that enough for you?

To throw a final spanner in the works, I’ve been living in the UK for the past four years. To quote a Russian friend I met here “Americans are complicated”. In my experience, so many people are so complicated… But okay, I’ll take it.

I always hear about Asian Americans who have to hide from or embrace their roots, but what do you do if you don’t really have roots? It seems the “correct” approach to identity to to embrace the cultural ancestry, but can’t we just be okay being who we are?

I know my face will precede my story every time, but next time you ask, please do so out of genuine, open curiosity about me, and not to satisfy your own inner assumptions. And for those of you who get me on a bad day, a day when I’ve been ching chonged at (yes it happens on the streets of London and New York even), or Konnichiwa-ed at, have patience if I just don’t feel like answering.